Socks
by The Clown Queen of Spades
Summary: The Joker changes his story. Again. Except this time, it's a little more human. And fuzzy. This time, he wants to talk about his socks. One-shot. My first fic, so be nice. No flames, please. Reviews are much appreciated.


**Hey there!**

**Alright, here's my very first fic ever, and probably one of the only ones I'll get up here, unfortunately, since I'm so parched for ideas. There's just a few things I'd like to rule about before we start.**

**One: the narration is supposed to be kept sort of light, so it's meant to be a little annoying. If it really bugs you though, I can probably fix it.**

**Actually, that's it really, so read and enjoy.**

**Oh, wait, NO FLAMES, PLEASE! It's my first story, and flames are just ... baah. So don't, kay? Kay.**

**And of course, I don't own Batman. Probably never will, either.**

**(hands cookie)**

Socks

So this one night, the Joker's really bored, but he quickly finds something to do, as usual, and unfortunately for her.

I mean sure, she was kind of boring: just a normal lady walking home from work, but hey, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, right? So with his catlike agility and all, he jumps her. She tries to run away and she screams and all that, but he's too quick for her and there's no one there to hear her screaming.

So now he has her pressed up against a wall of a dark alleyway, and she's squirming and wriggling like a normal person should. And you know, the Joker has the knife at her throat, and a hand over her mouth, and he begins to launch into his speech, as usual.

"Really, sweetheart, you shouldn't be walking home at a time like this. You never know when you might run into some, ah, _trouble_,"

And she struggles, and squirms, and – oh for goodness' sake - cries. The only thing she isn't doing is smiling. And the Joker, he doesn't really like people without a sense of humour. He doesn't really, ah, get along with them. So he sighs, and he brings the knife up to her face.

"Oh dear, we're not happy at all, are we? You're not – you're not afraid of the dark, are you?"

She whimpers. He smirks, then licks his lips.

"Well now, that's no fun. But hey, how about I tell you a little story? It's one of my favourites. It really is … a _scream_,"

The Joker chuckles at his joke. He licks his lips again, and then continues. He's suppressing giggles, now.

"You – you wanna know how I got these scars?"

And the laughter starts to come out now. Okay, so he's cackling.

"So I come home one night from a long day at work, and all I really wanna do is spend time with my bee-ootiful wife, who's waiting for me at home. So I do see her, except, except … she's canoodling on the couch with Mr. Next-Door Neighbour. So, I remember it was one of my rare moments when I wasn't smiling – "

But he quickly stops when he sees that she's not looking at him anymore. So he gets mad. He grabs her roughly by the throat, and gets up really close to her face. And he speaks, in a voice of pure poison.

"You know, doll, it's not polite – not _nice_ – to not look at people when they're talking,"

But this chick, she's really starting to bug him, 'cause even though he's all up in her grill and whatnot, she's still not looking at him. So he's a bit curious, now. And you know, by removing the cause, you remove the symptoms, right? So, he tries to find out what the hell she's staring at. And he finds it. Or them, rather. In the weakest beam of the streetlamp, they're just visible.

She's staring at his socks. His bloody socks. That's meant literally, as well.

So yeah, his socks. They're really interesting to look at. Probably 'cause they're so colourful. Both socks are basically just a whole bunch of checkered colours knitted together. There's four colours, actually: black, green, brown, and purple. And they've got such a history too.

Oh yes, they do. Not many people the Joker talks to like to chat about how they got their socks. It might be because the Joker tends to end up killing them, but hey, whatcha' gonna do?

So anyways, the Joker remembers it really well. It was a few years back, around Christmastime. And this guy, his name was … oh, what was it now? It's been so long ago since the Joker's thought about it … oh yes, it was Jack. Jack … Napier. That's right. Charming fellow, really. So Jack, he was in love with this beautiful girl, what was her name?

Oh yes, that's right. The Joker doesn't _want_ to remember her name. Because if he remembered what her name was, the girl that he – no – _Jack_ was in love with, then …

So she doesn't have a name. It's around Christmastime, and Jack is working. A lot. And they're a bit short on money. And lo and behold, out of all the things Jack has to run out of (aside from money), he runs out of socks. All of them have holes in them. All of them. And it's getting kind of cold out, now that it's Christmastime. So that doesn't help. So Jack works as hard as he can, but pretty much all the money he makes goes into paying the rent and getting food. And it's the same thing with Jack's girl. Money's getting a little bit tight.

So one night, Jack comes home to find his girl covered in yarn. That's right, yarn. It's everywhere. Lots of colours too, like black, green, brown, and purple. And Jack's kind of wondering what she's doing. And she tells him that she was, "Just, um looking around through stuff that could be, um, thrown out," or something.

Jack's kinda curious, but he's really tired, and he goes to bed. With his holey socks. Dammit.

A couple days later, Jack finds a pair of knitting needles lying around. Now, he's never seen knitting needles around the apartment, so he's kind of like, 'What the hell?'. But Jack's bonnie lass, she tells him that they're hers, and they're old and she was planning to throw them out and stuff.

So Jack's getting really twitchy, but he still just lets it go. He's really tired, so he goes to bed.

And then, a couple days before Christmas, after Jack has bought a present for his girl, he knocks on the bedroom door. And he hears from inside the room, a mad scrambling and scrabbling sound, like she's trying to put something away really fast, and she comes to the door all dishevelled and breathless. So, Jack says nothing, but he gives her a kiss and tells her that he loves her.

So now we cut to Christmas. Jack has managed to scrounge up enough money to buy his girl a beautiful ruby necklace. He wanted to buy her the sapphire one, but he didn't have enough. But she loves it anyways, and puts it on right away. She's positively glowing when she hands Jack his present: a small, light box wrapped in purple paper. Now he's bursting with curiosity, so he opens it as fast as he can without ripping the beautiful wrapping job she's done, and lo and behold.

She's knitted him a pair of socks.

She tells him how she's been knitting ever since she was really little, and how she looked through all the yarn that she had, but she didn't have enough to make the socks in just one colour. So she had to keep changing colours, 'cause she wanted to make them nice, so she made them in a checkered pattern.

So now she's looking kind of sheepish, which is really cute on her.

It's the best present Jack has ever gotten. He hugs her and kisses her, softly, gently, and he laughs. He laughs really hard. And you know what? She laughs too. They're both just sitting there, like a couple of _clowns_, laughing.

Finally, someone gets the joke.

So Jack has never taken off those socks. Neither has the Joker.

This whole trip down Memory Lane has only taken a couple of seconds for the Joker, actually. But it was long enough for the chick to start struggling and whimpering, and yes, crying some more. So the Joker, he's lost his train of thought. Which doesn't happen a lot. Or maybe it does. You can never really tell with that guy.

Whatever. Anyways, the Joker … he finds it all really funny. How she's just looking at his socks. And then, something weird happens. Which happens pretty often, because he's kind of a weird guy to begin with.

He thinks, what if she doesn't wanna hear this story? What if it's getting … boring?

Which wouldn't be so weird on its own, because, you know, he does that a lot. Changing the story, that is.

So he brings the knife up to her face again, and she's gone totally silent. She's all ears. She's just dying to hear the Joker's new take on things.

And the Joker laughs because, because … this is just too funny.

And he whispers really softly in her ear.

**"… You wanna know how I got these **_**socks**_**?"**

So he tells her. And he thinks it's the funniest thing he's ever heard, because he's such a funny guy. And she doesn't seem to mind either. In fact, she's smiling. I mean, it took a little help from the Joker, but she's definitely smiling. It's all beautiful and red and gushing on her face. She must have been laughing so hard that she fell down. And died.

The Joker's still laughing as he wipes the blood of his gloves. In fact, he's laughing so hard, he's crying. Well, that's what he says to himself. He doesn't consider the possibility that maybe the tears came first, and then he started laughing. Because that would be ridiculous, you know?

And he drags her body out onto the sidewalk and lays her face-up, with her beautiful smile glowing in the streetlamp. And he takes a card out of his pocket, a joker card, actually, and he tucks it in her jacket. But before he does, he writes one word on it.

_Socks._

He writes that one word 72 times. He counts.

And he's still absolutely bawling. Of laughter, of course. Because the Joker doesn't get sad, right? So he turns away, and he skips down the sidewalk. And he mutters a little bit. Well, it's a bit louder than muttering, 'cause he's still cackling.

_"Socks, socks … She wanted to know where I got 'em, so I told her…HAHAHAHA!"_

And he can feel the socks brushing against his skin. And if he looks down, he can see the checkered pattern in the half-light.

And he can feel the laughter bubbling in his throat.

But mostly, he can feel the tears running down his face.

But only because he's crying of laughter, right?

Right?

**End.**


End file.
